• What do you think the world was like a hundred years ago? How about the exact place where you're sitting or standing or lying down right now?
• Now, how would you actually find out?
• If you wanted to learn about a certain time in the past, would you rather read a book, visit a museum, watch a documentary, or explore an old architectural site?
• Should we ask our parents or grandparents, or other older people in our lives, to tell us what the world was like when they were growing up? If so, can we trust them to remember things accurately, or to share them honestly?
• What would you ask someone who was alive a thousand years ago, if they popped out of a very high-tech time capsule? Of everyone who was alive in the world back then, who would you want to talk to?
• Does it matter how the world came to be what it is, or should we focus on what it has become—and what we want it to be? In other words, is reconstructing the past a good use of time when we could instead be inventing the future?
• Is there a difference between remembering the past and reconstructing it?
• The phrase "there's no time like the present" is usually meant as an antidote to procrastination. Do something now, not later. Finish this outline today, not in 2024. Taking it more literally, however: is the present really a unique point in history? If so, does it make it harder for us to understand what the past was like?
• "Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it" is a phrase many people repeat, but is it possible that those who do study history are doomed to absorb the worst things about it? Would it be better if we could scrub history clean and start over again with no memories of what came before us?
• Has the pandemic forced a healthy reimagining of past practices, like attending school and working at a real office, or should we go back to the way things were?
• The director Spike Jonze is credited with saying that "the past is just a story we tell ourselves." Is it? If so, could reconstructions of the past help us agree on what the story is—or will different people reconstruct different pasts?